Just a couple days after one of his former players was shot and killed following a traffic altercation, New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton went off on a rant about the lack of gun control in the United States.
Payton, who usually doesn’t involve himself in the social issues plaguing this nation today, had this to say:
“Two hundred years from now, they’re going to look back and say, ‘What was that madness about?’ “ Payton told USA Today on Monday. “The idea that we need them to fend off intruders … people are more apt to draw them (in other situations). That’s some silly stuff we’re hanging onto.”
This comes less than 48 hours after his former player, Will Smith, was murdered in cold blood after an accident in New Orleans early Sunday morning.
Payton wasn’t done throwing out his opinion regarding the growing epidemic facing this nation, making sure to tie in Smith’s murder:
“It was a large caliber gun (the weapon that killed Smith). A .45,” Payton said. “It was designed back during World War I. And this thing just stops people. It will kill someone within four or five seconds after they are struck. You bleed out. After the first shot (that struck Smith), he took three more in his back.”
Obviously distraught over a senseless act of violence that has impacted his organization and those around the football world, Payton had every right to air his grievances.
Until gun violence impacts us on a micro level, we have no idea what it is like to lose a loved one to what is becoming one of the primary societal issues in the United States today.
“We could go online and get 10 of them, and have them shipped to our house tomorrow,” Payton continued. “I don’t believe that was the intention when they allowed for the right for citizens to bear arms.”
And that right there is the crux of the argument. As Payton indicated, some believe the right to bear arms shouldn’t be an inalienable right. Instead, there should be harsher restrictions on what types of guns can be owned, who can purchase weapons and the background process that’s currently leading to guns getting into the wrong hands.
One of the most intriguing comments coming from Payton is just how strong he feels about the racial divide when it comes to the perception of violence in New Orleans itself:
“We don’t hear this noise when something happens in New Orleans East, or in the Lower 9,” he said, referring to primarily African-American areas of the city. “Now you creep into the Garden District …”
There is a racial divide in pretty much every major city in the United States. This divide has taken on a whole new meaning in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina so many years ago, but it’s something that has existed for a while now.
That is to say, people being more up in arms when violence occurs in more affluent neighborhoods, areas of the city that are predominantly occupied by Caucasian citizens.
“I just know this,” Payton finished. “Our city is broken.”
The sadness is real here. The anger is real here.
Our thoughts and prayers continue to go out to the Saints organization, the young family Smith left behind and the entire NFL community during this most difficult of times.